


Initiative

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose Shelby vs. All the Bastards [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 04:46:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18731875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: Tommy's summoned to collect Rose from the headmistress' study...and this suits Rose just fine.





	Initiative

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrelandForever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrelandForever/gifts), [AniRay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AniRay/gifts), [Jubilee44](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jubilee44/gifts).



> A very small, sweet and slightly mischievous one shot - set after the Rat Catchers madness - because it's too much fun, basically.

By the time her father’s broad strides advanced down the corridor, Rose had been sitting outside the headmistress’ office for quite some time. Hours, actually. Four of them, possibly nearer to five of them now. Lessons stopped at four and the school was deserted now and silent, safe the echo of her father’s shoes on the cold floor.

Rose sat very straight and very still, her eyes on the stupid painting of Jaysis calling the children to him, until Tommy stopped in front of her and blocked the view. She kept her eyes on his midsection – the buttons of his open coat, the chain leading to the watch hidden in his waistcoat pocket – until she could practically hear the steam escaping from his ears.

Very slowly she looked up, holding his stare and offering a slight shrug.

“What’d you do?” he asked.

“Nothin’, would you believe it,” Rose answered evenly.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yea, well, nor do they.” Rose jerked her head towards the headmistress’ door.

“I’ve got enough on without having to come in here and sort out your messes,” Tommy said.

“I’m sorry.” Rose didn’t look away. “But it’s not my mess. I didn’t do what they say I did.”

“And what’s that?”

“They’ll tell you,” Rose said glumly.

As if on cue the door opened.

“Mister Shelby,” Missis Baine said with a curt nod.

Tommy responded with a possibly even curter nod of his own.

“You best come in,” Missis Baine stepped aside to let him pass. “You, too, Rose.”

There was only one chair on the visitors’ side of the headmistress’ desk, so Rose remained standing while her father settled in, crossed his legs and proceeded to light a cigarette.  
Missis Baines didn’t smoke, in fact she spent much of her time decrying it as a filthy habit and woe betide any girl caught with a fag while in school uniform, even if it wasn’t anywhere near the grounds. This particular woe had already betided Rose, twice; so it made her very happy to watch the headmistress wrestle with herself for a moment before she set a saucer in front of Tommy as an ashtray.

“Thank you,” he said politely.

“Welcome. Now, Mister Shelby, we’ve had a most regrettable incident today involving your daughter-“ Missis Baine cleared her throat. “It’s not the first, as I’m sure you’re well aware, but I’ve tended to err on the side of leniency with Rose up until now. However-“

“Why’s that?”

“Pardon?” The headmistress was thrown, Rose could tell.

“Why did you err on the side of leniency?”

“Because I wanted to allow her time to settle in,” Missis Baines said primly. “Being the new girl is never easy, especially when a girl’s background is…” Rose bit back a grin when the headmistress briefly faltered “…is quite unusual.”

“Unusual.”

“Yes, Mister Shelby, unusual.” Despite herself, Rose had to admire Missis Baines’ backbone. “But Rose has been back now for nearly six months, and even if she’d only just started last week there is simply no excuse for the array of misdemeanors she has managed to commit today.”

“An array, is it?”

“Quite.” Missis Baine watched with barely disguised irritation as Tommy ground his cigarette out on the saucer. “Theft, to start with. Fighting, shortly thereafter; and now blatant lies in an attempt to avoid retribution.”

For a moment Tommy simply sat and took in the information, one finger tapping slowly at the arm of his chair.

“Right,” he finally said. “So, she’s earned herself the cane. That’s not the first time. Why’d you call me in?”

“Well, Mister Shelby, the item that was stolen happens to be a rather valuable brooch – a family heirloom, to be exact – and one of the girls involved in this morning’s altercation is going to be spending the night in hospital. I have three families demanding your daughter’s immediate expulsion and calling in the law on top of that.”

Missis Baines was back into the swing of things now and Rose could tell by the tightness of her father’s jaw that he was unpleasantly surprised, to say the least.

“You see, if Rose admitted to taking the brooch and agrees to return it, her remaining at this school might be a possibility. There would of course be punitive measures; but expulsion can still be avoided provided Rose takes responsibility for her actions. Yet she quite obstinately insists on being innocent.”

“What if she is innocent?”

“Frankly, Mister Shelby, I find this rather unlikely.”

Rose tensed and made herself wait. It wouldn't do to open her mouth even one second too early.

“Why?” He wasn’t shouting, he wasn’t even using an unpleasant voice really, yet Rose’s father managed to completely derail the headmistress with one single syllable.

“I…well…”

“Because we’re gypsies.”

Both Tommy and Missis Baines whipped their heads towards Rose and stared. The look on her father’s face made Rose almost glad for Missis Baines’ presence in the room, having a witness was perhaps the only thing keeping him from eating her alive.

“It’s true,” she insisted.

“I didn’t say-“ Missis Baines started.

“You thought it but,” Rose interrupted. “They all think it…and Charlotte said it even. Catherine Clarke lost her stupid pin and, when she started bawling, Charlotte said if someone nicked it, it’d have to have been the gypo.”

“I don’t believe those were quite the words she used,” Missis Baines attempted feebly.

“It’s the exact words.” Rose turned slightly to address her father directly. “And then they came at me, three on one, and tried to turn my pockets out.”

“That’s where the fighting comes in, is it?” he asked.

“Yea,” she admitted.

“Mister Shelby-“

“Rose, go and bring your school bag in,” Tommy ordered, taking no notice at all of Missis Baines.

Rose went and retrieved her bag from under the chair outside.

“Give it here.”

Her father stood and took her school bag, undid the buckles and turned it upside down over the headmistress’ desk. Books, loose papers, two decaying apple cores, a tin of pencils and a fistful of sweet wrappers clattered noisily onto the polished surface.

“Right, nothing here.” Tommy nodded for Rose to come and stand beside him. “Pockets.”

Slowly and deliberately, Rose added the contents of her skirt and blazer pockets to the mess on the desk. A book of matches, a couple of coins, a piece of chalk and disgraceful handkerchief.

“Are you satisfied, Missis Baines?”

“I…” The headmistress wanted to argue, Rose could tell, but she wasn’t going to. “Yes. For the time being. It still leaves the matter of Rose severely injuring a fellow pupil.”

“I’ll be dealing with that,” Tommy said. “Pack up, Rose.”

Hurriedly, she swept her things from the desk into her bag.

“Good day, Missis Baines,” her father said, already holding the door open.

“Mister Shelby,” the headmistress replied.

Rose followed her father down the corridor and outside to the car, nearly running to keep up with him.

#

For the better part of the way home they rode in silence.

“Three on one, was it?” Tommy finally asked.

“Yea.” Rose glanced over at him cautiously. “Catherine and Charlotte and Juliette.”

“Which one’s damaged?”

“Charlotte,” Rose said with only a small hint of a smile.

“Break her nose, did you?”

“No.”

“Well?”

“I…uhm…” There was a fifty-fifty chance on incurring fresh wrath with the truth, Rose figured. “See, she’s much taller than me, they all are…”

“Out with it.”

“Right, so…she had me by the arms, Charlotte, from the back, see, and I jumped so my head hit her chin and she…ah…she bit her tongue…off…a bit.”

“What?” Her father was staring at her now, keeping only half an eye on the road.

“Only a little piece,” Rose said. “Very little-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake-“

“It was an accide- well, not it wasn’t really,” Rose backpedaled when she saw the look on his face. “But I didn’t mean to hurt her…that much. And anyway, she was the one calling me a gypo thief, so really-“

“And how’d she come by this particular knowledge?” Tommy asked, and for the first time there was real menace in his voice.

“I…”

When Rose had been enrolled, kicking and screaming, at St. Paul’s a few years ago, her father had sent her off with a comprehensive set of instructions. There were things, he had explained, that she’d have no need to mention at her new school. The fact that she’d not made her first communion, despite now attending a Catholic school; the precise nature of the family business, legitimate and otherwise…and, without any particular explanation, their heritage. He’d actually used that word and then made her look it up in the bloody dictionary when she didn’t know what it was. She'd kept to these rules, until very recently at least.

“I’m listenin’.”

“It’s not my fault,” Rose said.

“Oh, it’s not, is it?”

They were driving through the gate now, the big house looming like something haunted.

“It’s not like you’re the milkman,” Rose said as bravely as she could manage. “The Shelby name’s known.”

“Worked it out on their own, did they?” Her father stopped the car and rounded on her. “Did their detective work, the little public-school girls?”

“How the- how should I know?” Rose asked. “Maybe they overheard something at home…her da’s chief constable or something…”

“Who’s da is?”

Rose mumbled something.

“Speak up.”

“Charlotte’s,” she said very, very, very quietly.

“Are you having me on?” Tommy stared at her.

Rose shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“Is she Charlotte Henley or Charlotte Grant?”

“Charlotte Henley.”

Her father’s fingers were working the steering wheel like a piano.

“She’s a right cow,” Rose offered. “She’s been horrible to me forever.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“And…” She let the next bit fade away.

“And what?”

“Nothin’.”

“You’re not doin’ yourself any favours shutting up now, _chavi,_ ” her father growled.

“Why d’you call me that if you want me to keep who our people are a secret?” Rose met his eyes dead on and set her jaw as best as she could. “You’re not ashamed, I know you’re not, so why do I have to be?”

“It’s not about shame, Rose,” Tommy said levelly.

“Then why make me hide it?”

“Because I wanted to keep the very thing that’s happened today from happening.” Her father looked quite tired now. “Because I know these people, they’re small-minded fucks, orright?”

“Then why d’you sent me there?” Rose made a valiant attempt at staring him down.

“It’s the best school in town, Rose.”

“My old school was fine.”

“Well, this one’s better.”

“Why is it?” Rose bristled.

“Money,” Tommy said. “Best education money can buy, you’re getting.”

“That’s not fair.”

“To whom?”

“To people without money,” Rose said. “Alice and Helen are both smarter than me and they’re not getting the best of anything.”

“You know the new work I’m starting?”

Rose nodded.

“Changing that sort of thing is all part of it.”

“Making my old school better?” Rose asked.

“Amongst other things, yea.” Her father searched his pockets for a lighter.

“Because the working men’s children hold just as much promise as anyone?”

Tommy stopped with the flame halfway to the cigarette.

“Where d’you pick that up?”

“You said it on the phone the other night,” Rose said.

“Well, yea.”

“But…how’re people going to believe you mean it if your own child’s up with the small-minded fucks because the normal school’s not good enough?”

Rose was pleased to see that this gave her father pause, at least a little.

“What’ve small minded fucks to teach me that’s so important anyway?” she added.

“How to deal with them,” her father said.

“Oh, they’ve been dealt with,” Rose blurted.

“Sure,” Tommy said. “And I imagine it’s all that’s being talked about over dinner up in the big houses tonight, how the little gypsy girl cut the copper’s daughter’s tongue off.”

“I didn’t-“

“You may as well have,” he interrupted. “It’ll be the bloody story come morning.”

“They came at _me_ ,” Rose said. “I was defending meself. You can’t give me a hiding for defending-“

“Did I say I would?”

“Yea, sort of… You said you’d deal with it, with the fighting.”

“Well, as you said, you were defending yourself,” her father said.

“I was.”

“Orright then.” Tommy opened the car door and got out into the drizzle. _“Bocklo_?”

“Yea…” Rose climbed out and followed him inside in search of food.

#

An hour or so later, stuffed to the roots of her hair with bread and cheese, Rose was laid out on the rug in front of the fire. Her father was in his office, where he was likely to remain until the wee hours, but that was orright. Rose felt like she’d run a marathon, nearly, with the last bit still left to go.

The phone rang a couple of rooms away, once, twice, three times. He always waited to the fourth ring, to show people he wasn’t in a hurry, that he wasn’t waiting for them to call.

Rose closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. She’d make it to the end. The ribbon was in sight, the finish line was coming.

After nearly a hundred breath, footsteps announced her father’s approach.

“Rosie?” “Yea?” she asked without sitting up or opening her eyes.

“That was your woman, Missis Baines, on the phone then.”

“What’s she want now?” Rose asked.

“To apologise,” her father said.

Rose opened one eye and looked up at him.

“The Clarke girl’s brooch turned up somewhere in amongst her things.”

“Aye?”

“Apparently they’ll be more than happy to have you back -” Tommy said “- but I’ve taken the liberty to decline on your behalf.”

Rose didn’t squeal with glee, she didn’t jump up and down or hug her father or do a jig on the sofa; she merely nodded.

“Where next?” she asked.

“Back to Saltley,” her father said. “Might as well put our money where our mouths are, aye?”

“Yea,” Rose said.

Tommy stared into the fire for a moment before giving Rose a small nod and disappearing back towards his work.

Rose waited to set free a huge grin until the door fell shut behind him. She let go off the breath she’d been holding since she’d swiped Catherine Clarke’s brooch from the blazer draped over the back of her seat, the breath she’d been holding since she’d slipped said brooch into Catherine Clarke’s needle box while everyone was tending to the screaming Charlotte.

The race was run, done and won.


End file.
